And It All Comes Around
by Anansay
Summary: Sara and Greg meet up after shift.


**TITLE: **…And it all comes around. **  
AUTHOR: **Anansay**  
SUMMARY:** Sara and Greg meet up after shift. **  
RATING:** PG. **  
DISCLAIMER: **Not mine. Just borrowing. **  
AUTHOR'S NOTES:** Response to Unbound Challenge.  
**AUTHOR'S NOTES 2: **Things tend to blow wide open in my life. One minute, there's nothing and the next I have no idea what hit me. I have suddenly found Greg of undeniable sex appeal. Yeah.

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**…And It All Comes Around**

_by Anansay  
March 23, 2005_

**"Perhaps it was a mistake."**

The softness of his voice floated over her dulled senses, massaging the pain in deeper. The thought had become reality, given voice by the most unlikeliest of sources.

Three days had been enough for Greg. For three days Sara had wandered the lab halls in a daze of silence and gloom. Her form would wash by the windows, leaving a smear of self-deprecation in its wake. Whatever had happened, it wasn't good.

His keen ears opened wider to the whispers rampant in closed working spaces and the murmurs that worked their way back to him were far from good. They were downright distressing.

He watched her on the third night, her body disappearing beneath her small coat, head held high yet shoulders slumped. He'd watched her enough over the years to identify her moods. This night it was a dark and dismal mood. No smiles, no glances, just her purse held loosely in her dangling hand and then she disappeared around the corner. Hurrying to the locker room for his own stuff he followed her out, and then followed her car to a local all-night bar.

The doorway was sunken into the wall, hidden from the street. The darkness enveloped her.

Inside, among the thick fetid smoke and the raucous sounds of what could have been music, he spied the brunette slumped in a booth at a far corner and made his way to her among the throng of weaving drunks.

Melancholic eyes greeted him from beneath a barely raised head and she stared at him, part in surprise and part in resignation. Having mentored him for the last while and thusly spending time together, it had become almost expected that there'd grow to be some sort of rapport between them beyond the usual labrat and CSI interaction. He was one of _them_ now.

"Greg," she said, her voice barely heard above the din.

He slid into the booth facing her and folded his hands on the table. It was a cushioned cocoon of deep maroon velvet, surrounding them and sheltering them from the intrusions of a world slowly spinning into lunacy. He eyed the lone tumbler of amber liquid and ordered another for himself. While the world slowly dissolved into a Dali painting, certain perceptions became clearer through the haze of inebriation. Greg hoped to acquire such understanding by joining Sara in her quest for… whatever it was she was seeking at the bottom of a glass.

Why not start right at the bottom?

"Sara, what happened three days ago?"

Her head jerked up, eyes wide and then squinting to mere slits as she pondered the sudden drop into personal territory. She downed the liquid, shutting her eyes against the burn and gasping once before eyeing Greg again. This time, instead of anger and doubt, it was the resignation again. Not only was he here as a friend, but he was here as a _curious _friend as well.

"Why?"

Greg willed his heart to cease its nervous thumping; he'd heard tales of Sara's ire. "You're not… yourself. You haven't been for three days." Then he grinned his famous grin and his eyes twinkled even more. "I notice these things, you know."

Sara regarded him and her eyes, those deep wells of surging emotion, began hinting at something else, something Greg had never seen, only heard of. They glistened with _need. _

Greg's heart leapt at the proffered bond. He leaned forward. "Tell me."

Sara swallowed, never taking her eyes off Greg's, and began to speak. First in halting words as she tried to find the right ones to adequately convey her regret and confusion, hopes and nightmares, then more flowing as it came pouring out in gushes, interrupted and spurred on by swigs of alcohol. It raveled around Grissom and her misplaced devotion to a too-well guarded well of possibilities. Her head hurt from pounding it against his impenetrable fortress and now she sagged to the ground, tired and worn out.

Her head landed with a thud on the table. Her hair fanned out, some landing in the empty glass. Greg could feel eyes on them, curious.

His hand trembled in the air just before he let it touch her hair and he called to her. Her head raised and she peered at him through a fog of alcohol and hair. He opened his mouth and uttered words he never thought he would.

"Perhaps it was a mistake."

Sara blinked slowly. "What?"

He shrugged his shoulders, surprised himself. "You came for the wrong reasons." More wanted to be said, so much more but there were no words yet for those thoughts and he held them in, close to his heart.

But as Sara stared into his eyes, it was like she were reading him, going deeper than most people went, uncovering and reaching in, feeling and knowing. It was his turn to gulp. He downed his full glass and shut his eyes.

"Let me drive you home," he said.

Sara sat back and barked a laugh. "You're as drunk as I am, Greggo."

"Fine. A taxi then." He rose, dropped some bills onto the table, ignoring Sara's raised eyebrow and steered to the exit.

Sara leaned against Greg in the cab and he in turn leaned into the corner. She was right, he was drunk and not in any shape to hold her up, regardless of her light frame. So he rested back and enjoyed the sprawl of her limp body against his.

He thought it curious how even the scent of alcohol could entice one to relinquish moral high ground for the more base pleasures in life, as he found his eyes roaming over her inert body. It was a pleasure he rarely indulged in, but the reasons seemed far away and trivial as the sky brightened to the sun's arrival.

He roused her minutes later when they reached her apartment building and together they shuffled to her door, neither feeling the ability to walk on their own. Without thought, they stumbled inside and **the door slammed.**

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**THE END**


End file.
